Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the strictest ban on abortion in the history of the state of Florida this morning.
The ban, which makes administering or receiving an abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy a crime, contains no exemptions for instances of rape, incest, or human trafficking. Its only exceptions are in cases where continuing to carry a pregnancy would severely threaten the life of the pregnant person in question.
In passing the law, DeSantis leaned on rhetoric that had nothing to do with the outright violation precedent set in Roe v. Wade nearly 50 years ago. That case established an unfettered right to an abortion before the beginning of the second trimester and a narrow right to regulate abortions before the beginning of the third trimester. Though this standard was largely unscientific, it was light years beyond the drivel being espoused by waves of Republican legislators limiting abortion access now that the Supreme Court appears unwilling to protect this precedent.
The new law establishes an outright ban on abortions performed any time after the very early days of the second trimester and well before any fetus has reached anything approaching viability. This outright attack on the rights of women in Florida drew plenty of criticism from local politicians and activists (as well as praise from some of the slimiest people on Earth).
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